Now that Yahveh has told Moses who he is, he reiterates his command. Moses is to go back to Egypt and lead the children of Israel to the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Yahveh also warns Moses that it isn't going to be a simple matter of walking up to Pharaoh and saying, "Let my people go." Pharaoh was going to fight and resist but in the end, Yahveh promised, he would yield.
How does Moses take all of this? "What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, 'The LORD did not appear to you?'"
When we read this, often we wonder at Moses's doubt and hesitation. After all, he was talking to Yahveh in a burning bush. Isn't that enough?
But I can understand his hesitation. This wasn't Yahveh telling him to clean his room or something trivial like that. Yahveh was calling Moses to be the liberator of an entire nation, a daunting task to say the least. I know I would be overwhelmed.
Yahveh understands too. Instead of rebuking Moses for his doubt, he instead gives Moses a sign.
"What is in your hand?" he asks.
"A staff," Moses replies.
"Throw it on the ground."
Moses does so and to his astonishment, the stick turns into a snake, which he naturally runs from. But Yahveh tells him to reach out and grab the serpent by the tail. Carefully Moses does so only to see the snake become a staff again.
"This," Yahveh says, "is so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers-the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-has appeared to you."
If this were me, I'd be good at this point (along with more than a little frightened of my staff). But Yahveh isn't done yet.
"Put your hand inside your cloak," he orders Moses.
When Moses pulls his hand back out, to his horror, it is leprous (side note: not necessarily leprosy; the ancient Hebrews called a wide variety of skin diseases leprosy). But Yahveh tells him to put his hand back in and this time when Moses pulls it out, his hand is back to normal.
Yet Yahveh still isn't done giving Moses ammo. "If they don't believe these two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on dry ground. The water you take from the river will become blood on the ground."
A staff that turns into a snake, a hand that can be come leprous on command, and the ability to turn water into blood; that should be plenty to give Moses the confidence that he can do this. He's got the power, right? But, nope.
"O LORD," Moses whines, "I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue."
Yahveh's answer cuts to the heart of this issue. "Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?" (ESV)
Who has made man's mouth?
Moses has completely missed the point. All he can see are the problems: I can't do this, they won't do that, so on and so forth. In fact, even after Yahveh has laid this boom on him, Moses still says, "O Lord, please send someone else to do it."
To his credit, it is a daunting task that Yahveh has called him to. Yahveh is asking Moses to go virtually by himself to the most powerful man in the entire world and challenge him to a battle of the gods and that's the easy part. He then has to take a group of slaves and mold them into a functioning nation. Moses has a wife and kids and a simple, peaceful life. I can understand him not wanting to leave that and I can understand him being overwhelmed. Most of us would be too; we can understand Moses's self-doubt.
But that self-doubt is the problem. Moses doesn't believe he can do it, which many of us would mistake for humility but that's not humility: it's a lack of faith.
You see, that's the point Moses missed. Yahveh has called him to this task, he made him for this task and now Moses is essentially saying that Yahveh made a mistake. That is what Moses's is really saying when he says "Send someone else." No wonder Yahveh's anger "burned against Moses."
But Yahveh doesn't make mistakes, as he reminds Moses. He created Moses, he has the power to fill in whatever Moses lacks and he will. Yahveh is saying, "You can do this because I say you can and that is all that you need."
Who has made man's mouth?
All of us were created with a purpose, a task. It may not be as epic as Moses's, freeing an entire race from bondage and making a nation out of them, but it is something. And often it is something we feel is over our heads.
"I can't be a missionary."
"I can't learn a new language."
"I know nothing about teaching."
"I can't speak in front of people."
I can't, I can't, I can't.
We try to pass off our doubt as being humble. We say that we aren't doubting Yahveh, we just know our limits. But that isn't remotely true because we know that Yahveh has called us to that, whatever that is, and we are saying to Yahveh, "You're wrong."
Isn't that definition of being faithless? Yahveh has made us, created us, and called us. He knows what we're capable of far more than we do. If there is anyone we should trust about what we can do, it ought to be him. When we doubt ourselves, we are really doubting him.
Yahveh has a purpose, a mission for your life. So when you confront it and you feel overwhelmed, remember who has made man's mouth.
No comments:
Post a Comment